


Twenty-One

by Lunch_Milk



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Changes of Scenery, Coming of Age, Detrimental Relationships, Eventual Smut, Gone Girl Interpretations of Love, Happiness is Only Momentary You Guys, I Almost Forgot About The Sex!, Jealousy, Libraries, M/M, Manipulation!, Ordinary Rock?, Parent Problems, Past and Present, Private School, Punk Rock, Skate Rat Tomfoolery, Skateboarding, Soul-Searching, You Might Need a Timeline
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-28
Updated: 2017-12-28
Packaged: 2019-02-23 05:35:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13183431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lunch_Milk/pseuds/Lunch_Milk
Summary: Skateboarders don't know what to do with themselves. Their bodies are vessels of entropy and angst and underlying issues stealing the semblance of coolness. At age sixteen, Noctis knows. He's that kid, slamming and slamming. Prompto is too--but he slams less, with more grace than Noctis can ever muster.Five years pass. Noctis is still that kid--Prompto is something else, entirely.The skate rat AU I am ashamed of.





	Twenty-One

**Author's Note:**

> Whenever I listen to Miguel for three days nonstop, mysterious things happen. This is one of those things.

            Twenty

…

(You think of Prompto. P-R-O-M-P-T-O. His last name is “Argentum” like the precious metal. He tastes like teeth-corroding cherry candy and ripened peaches, so soft that the flesh bleeds saccharine when delved by your fingertips. You think of telling him that, but you don’t know how to start conservations of such enormity. Besides, Prompto is mad at you, upset with you, despising you in ways you never thought he could. Forget that. Check the answering machine.)

“Hey—this is Lunafreya. I haven’t seen you in forever, Noctis! Just wondering how you did on your finals, if you’re enjoying your summer so far. If you get the time, could you call me back? We should meet up sometime. I still want to be friends.”

(Delete the message.)

…

A week before semester finals, Luna broke up with him. Noctis remembers it like this: shuffling into a coffee shop too close to campus, waiting for her with a hefty gift card she could use anywhere. It was their anniversary; Luna reminded him the night before. He bought her favorite cappuccino and a steaming hot chocolate for his scones—and she burst in the shop with her renowned ladylike presence. She sat across from him, crossed her legs, smiled politely, and sighed, “I met someone else.”

His name was Nyx. He was an art major.

Everything after that—gorging his scones like a monster and leaving his hot chocolate in Luna’s wake and spending the last gil on that fucking gift card for knickknacks and trinkets Prompto could adore, but not finding any suitable presents because there aren’t any skate shops in Altissia whatsoever—was a blur. Noctis remembers Prompto petting his hair, saying that everything will be okay—and when he says it, it’s bound to be true. He remembers asking why and answering the question himself.

Girls, nowadays, don’t buy into the practical. They’d rather pursue men of fanciful extents: those bad boys coalesced in the quad, smoking, cussing—snubbing women’s short skirts and curves of eyeliner but still watching them with clandestine and vulgar gazes. Noctis couldn’t muster that kind of contradictory, push-and-pull kind of effort. He was practical, in that _languorous_ kind of way. Nyx is an art major, the embodiment of impracticality—sinewy and charming and full of ideas.

Noctis is a business major—one of those students that think they deserve everything, that their sense of frugality, scrupulousness, and cruelty will get them everywhere with everyone. A girl in his literature class, Juno, had pooled all the business majors together like that; Noctis hasn’t been able to see his peers differently. He did think that he was different himself—Noctis wasn’t frugal or scrupulous or cruel—but he was _practical_. He knew he couldn’t skate too well. He knew he _sucked_ at interpreting prose and poetry. He figured he had a chance with Lunafreya—but he was very wrong.

The break-up threw his equilibrium off; Noctis fell into a depression of doubts. He was indecisive—couldn’t decide what he wanted for dinner or what he’d wear to class. He coddled Prompto with his uncertainties: “Maybe, I should just quit school. I’m doing this college shit for _Regis_ anyway.” He seriously considered eating vegetables, once. He thought of changing his major, twice.

“To what?”

“I dunno.”

But being sad because his girlfriend left him for a rough and tough art major wasn’t cool.

He overcame the initial and surprisingly, very dull pain of separation by replacing it: Ignis’s exam preps were miserable and Gladio’s workout regiments--hand-written and shipped across an entire ocean—were fucking brutal. Noctis’s brain could only conjure spontaneous facts, and his body couldn’t handle any movement at all. Some nights were unbelievable.

Some nights, Prompto fed him.

“ _My love is a fever, longing still for that which longer nurseth the disease—feeding on that which doth preserve the ill—the uncertain sickly appetite to please_.”

In their sphere, between bites of Ignis’s braised pork chops and sautéed salmon, Noctis recited old poetry verses and paralleled them with their modern paraphrases. He solved calculus problems in his head, plotting them along a mental graph. He knew history’s exact dates, forgone war strategies, the cause and effect of every invention and significant figure. He learned that practicality has nothing to do with college or youth. People his age are superhuman until they decide not to be.

(You think of your hand cinched around Prompto’s thigh—an occurrence of closeness you had yet to notice.)

Noctis learned that he is still a boy at heart—that complete transition manhood is sudden and awful. He learned that practicality is actually festering boredom under the guise of a positive trait; Noctis started to see everything wrapped in roses and sprawling ivies. Stars were in feasible grasp and poetry was read how it was meant to be read—with ethereal exhales and in the midst of lovely thoughts.

Noctis aced his semester finals. He fell right back into his body and habits: avoiding vegetables and being a twenty-year-old brat. Noctis forgot about Luna. Noctis started thinking of Prompto, again. He careened himself into the upturn of summer break, until the romance died. The cause of death was an unhurried culmination of cancer—a simple fuck, really.

…

This summer, Noctis has the apartment to his own devices. It’s the second story of a divided townhouse from Altissia’s golden days, a small, cramped, cozy dwelling fit for artists: two bedrooms, one bath. The living room has two windows and just enough space for a couch. The kitchen is a chain of cabinets opposite a slim countertop, linked to a gas stove and a two-door refrigerator. The fridge is plastered in old notes; Gladio sends letters that end in punk rock playlists, Ignis posts over-worded reminders—Prompto used to leave weird drawings and photos. For a number of reasons, he doesn’t bother anymore.

The walls are thin, like slices of paper partitioning entire lives. Every fall, fuck, and sigh can be heard.

(You think of the night your relationship with Prompto buckled under the weight of _feelings_. The neighbor beneath you pounded on his roof—your floor—telling you both to quiet down. He couldn’t sleep.)

…

Prompto is at work mostly, stocking an Augustus warehouse—trying not to steal, probably.

(You think of him sweating just enough for a sheen to coat his nape. You think of him coming home and making up with you, making out with you, making love with you--)

Ignis and Gladio are proud of him, relishing in his motivation and responsibility—and they’re constantly using him as an example to get Noctis off his lazy ass. But he can’t relate. Noctis misses Prompto too much, his thick aura and inescapable presence. He could leave and haunt the canals with Juno and Dante—but he’s never _really_ in the mood and that wouldn’t be a good look. He could make-do with Pryna, Luna’s dog that she stationed here because her dorm doesn’t allow pets. But Pryna reminds him of the girlfriend he doesn’t have anymore—and that fucking phone call he has to make.

…

Eventually, Noctis calls. There isn’t much else to do, other than masturbate under the high-pitched cloak of opera music and devour everything in the refrigerator whether Prompto’s name is on it or not. Ignis calls him an animal in lieu of long and extravagant words, but Noctis tells him to shut the hell up— _what do you know?_ Despite Prompto’s agonizing abhorrence, he’s still young and consequently superhuman.

Luna’s phone rings three times before she picks up, which disturbs and curdles his blood unreasonably.

“Hello?”

Noctis totters with his voice, “Hey, uh… it’s me.”

Her voice burbles, “Noctis! We thought you were dead.”

(Remember that it took you a nearly a week to call. Recognize that “we” equals Luna and Ravus.)

“I’m still here.”

They don’t discuss much. Their conversation doesn’t drown, but it certainly doesn’t float. He imagines their words being thrown into a lake, where they clearly struggle until someone decides to rescue them. Noctis realizes that they never had too many facets in common.

Luna explains how she’s moving out of her dorm and moving in with Ravus after he graduates this summer. She can take her dogs to her new apartment and that implies that she wants Pryna back soon—which will splinter Prompto’s heart into sharp and hurtful pieces—but she doesn’t dawdle on the topic or ask for opinions. She still wants to hang and “be friends”, so they briskly assign a time and a place—another fucking coffee shop too near campus, too early. He only agrees because he needs something to do and other things to think besides the contrived image of Prompto in a state of perpetual bliss, his fingers where they shouldn’t be.

“How is your roommate? Prompto, is it?”

“…He’s okay.”

“Well…”

(You think she senses the crisis in you. She always could.)

 “I do hope he gets better.”

“Me too.”

…

Noctis touches himself to the crescendo of opera music, to the thought of Prompto poised in positions suitable for his lithe. When he comes—and he always comes—there’s the singer’s quivering vibrato thrumming through the apartment and the faint tang of sex and the shame that follows—just as thick as an orgasm—and the feeling that every movement is a distortion of the heart and every thought is a tragedy. Nothing can be worse than this. This is rock bottom: the supple curve of Noctis’s bed accommodating his spine.

(You’re sick of masturbation. You’ve overdone the idea of sex. You crave more. Remember how you and Prompto used to be?)

…

They’ve lived in Altissia two years—almost seven-hundred and thirty days exactly, and in that span of weeks, the months and seasons they’ve encompassed, the romance has allegedly died. Noctis has been thinking about its funeral in the midst of wiping that opaque puddle of viscous ejaculation away from his body—in those quick showers that follow. He isn’t so sure anymore.

Prompto had mentioned romance’s death in the birth of June, with a broken laugh and a phony smile. He spoke in pleasantly forged inflections, a week after Noctis and Luna split, two days after Noctis’s finals, and barely a month before Noctis had ruined everything with his fucking mouth. Now, Prompto can hardly look at him—but back then, he clung to Noctis, wanting to satisfy and gratify spiritually, mentally and emotionally—never physically.

The beginnings of Altissian summer had just been conceived: overwhelmingly heavy, unbearably saccharine, and equally adhesive. Shirts had to be peeled from skin in the evenings, and summer daydreams clung to the mind oppressively. The thoughts that stuck to Noctis were immense, like nebulas webbing themselves in galaxies, stars weaving themselves into constellations; the process was methodical, but unintentional.

To combat the heat and awful thinking, Noctis consumed himself with consecutive naps—falling asleep during movies and waking up during dinner, never knowing what day it was. Prompto learned to loiter in the shower or linger in the bath, lathering himself in suds of miasma. He reeked of familiar midnight and temptation: Luna had told Noctis those were the scents becoming of a man.

The crispness of the air had dried his blonde tresses and the humidity had each strand fray from the other—but Prompto’s body had remained cool and damp. Water had pooled between his shoulder blades, merged in the curve of his spine as he propped himself on his elbows in Noctis’s bed. Prompto yearned for chaste proximity: shoved shoulders, melded thoughts, and spacious comfort—the kind of close and cordial interactions he never received when he was young. But he settled with whatever contact he could pry out of Noctis with pouts and frowns and frivolous manipulation.

“Come here—be with me.”

They made planets out of each other when they could, indulging in a kind of togetherness they hadn’t had time to develop in high school. They were the self-declared duo against the rest of society—Noctis and Prompto versus the tag team of university life and work and everyone who never really mattered. Ignis could come and go, openly commenting on the disarray of their townhouse without breaking their concentration. They shared more than just their apartment: food, soap, shampoo, and beds.

Noctis carved more time out of his schedule for Prompto than his girlfriend—which may have been a contributing factor to their separation. He told Prompto with his arms crossed behind his skull, eyes aimed at the roses curved on his bedroom’s ceiling.  The blonde’s laughter was tinny and forced next to him, “What about school? What about your _other_ friends—Ignis and Gladio? Those kids from your literature class? You don’t spend as much time with me as you think you do.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Don’t try to pin your break-up on me. You’re just a shitty boyfriend. That’s all.”

They envisioned their future selves: Noctis putting his eventual degree in business to work, taking control of his father’s company—Prompto skating tournaments and tours everywhere his skateboard can roll, crunching the world into a smaller toy for his enjoyment. They’d stay in touch; Noctis would see Prompto’s face on the covers of magazines and Prompto would see Noctis’s tense everything on television, just as awkward as he is now. Growing out of each other lives wasn’t a tangible concept—like death or depression. But the idea of maturing distance was natural for Prompto. Noctis suffered with it more—aching internally, for promises he couldn’t receive.

After one of Prompto’s lengthy showers, Noctis rested a palm against his damp ribs, felt a shudder within its cage. A pool of towel lied in his lap, fiddled with by his fingers; Prompto called Noctis’s nickname—noted his thumb streaking across a field of freckles.

Seriousness fixed Noctis’s expression and he murmured, “What if we could stay in Altissia forever? In this apartment?” He evoked the memory of their departure, the way Prompto was so restless and excited, the wonder floating in Prompto’s eyes when they stepped off the ferry and witnessed the stone glory of Altissia. Noctis taunted, “You were so in love. Remember? You said that Altissia had to be the most romantic thing created by mankind.”

Prompto smiled at his recollection at detail. He looked at him with clouded eyes, vaguely obstructed by the blonde lashes fanned over his indigo irises. Heartbeats thumped within chests and Noctis counted his every palpitation until Prompto spoke. His words were soft around the edges, but solid in their centers.

He said, “Noct, the romance is fucking dead. I hate it here. Don’t you?”

At the time, Noctis had agreed, clasping their hands together into something warm. He laughed, “Everyone is too artsy. Like you, but a million times worse.”

Prompto scoffed, “They take themselves too seriously then.”

Noctis continued, eyeing the barcode’s thin black lines staining the underside of his friend’s wrist, “Trying to find a place to skate in Altissia is like trying to find snow in hell.”

“What do you know? You’re not a real skater,” Prompto chided, shoulder nudging with Noctis’s. “Poser,” Prompto said; Noctis hadn’t wasted a moment yanking him into a headlock, which dissolved into a wrestling match—on the bed, on the floor. It had ended in carmine blushes and shrill laughter, slight and unremarkable movements to manage the bulges in their sweats. It wasn’t the first time Noctis had thought of kissing him—wouldn’t be the last.

Prompto may think that all love in Altissia is buried below the encircling waters, but Noctis has different beliefs. He has been imagining all of the scenarios in which he tells Prompto that he’s wrong.

…

Prompto comes home from work, permeating their apartment in the funk of new skateboards. He plays with Pryna and pretends like Noctis isn’t a living or breathing human being. That’s okay. While he’s poking through the vegetables in tonight’s dinner, Noctis watches from afar, noting everything he does: Prompto is engrossed in a game of tug-of-war with Pryna. Prompto is nestling into Pryna’s fur. Prompto is circumnavigating Noctis, coolly tonight. Prompto is taking a bath, fifteen minutes longer than yesterday’s. Prompto is skipping dinner: shrimp stir-fry. Prompto is going straight to bed, without an utterance of “goodnight.”  

…

For both their sakes, the word of the month is “platonic.” This isn’t necessarily a _thing_ , but Noctis writes it on his calendar anyway, in an intense and scarlet ink. In his search for laundry, Ignis notices and judges and makes snide comments like, “I didn’t think I provided you with a calendar for platonic purposes, whatever those may be.”

But Prompto doesn’t see it, scrawled large and conspicuous. Currently, he is preoccupied with situating himself back in his own room, in what he believes to be a subtle avoidance of Noctis, matters they should discuss, and the things they’ve done to each other—despite his inability to do anything with an ounce of subtlety. Prompto has taken his duvet from the tangle of Noctis’s sheets, his scented candles from the polished surface of Noctis’s dresser, his throes of skateboarding tapes and magazines from the mess under Noctis’s bed.

Prompto keeps his door locked. He keeps himself locked inside, only ever leaving if he has to. Their moments together are brief and odd. The all-nighters Noctis endured in preparation for his finals had him longing for that spacious comfort, someone to talk to. He’d lurk outside of Prompto’s room, ear planted to his door, lip lodged between his teeth. It’s become a habit now: Noctis waking in heart of the night, tiptoeing to his best friend’s room, and running his fingers along the juvenile sign, “Keep Out.”

(You think of him, thinking of you.)

…

In the morning, Prompto nurtures a cigarette and a canned cola in the living room, already dressed: ripped, acid washed jeans and a fiery Augustus tank top. His head is tucked out of the window, in observance of those early-risers below him. The uneven pinch pot Noctis made for him sophomore year in high school resides on the sill, in use as an ashtray. Pryna saunters near his sneakers, padding from one shoe to the other. He heeds Noctis’s tread along the hardwood and spares him a weak, fleeting glance.

“You’re up early.”

Noctis groans in response, not bothering to explain how he couldn’t sleep because of Prompto’s persistent refusal of contact. He doesn’t mention how he crept to Prompto’s door and listened to pretty nothingness for ten minutes. He notices the white bulbs above him, zigzagging across the expanse of the room. There’s a cadence blatant in his voice that he wishes he could take away, “Are these your lights?”

“Yep… Mine.”

Noctis yawns, “Cute.” Noting Prompto’s lack of response—the pristine emptiness and apathy he displays—he ambles over to their plants crowded on a different windowsill. He fingers around the sodden soil of their pots, surprised at how the dirt adheres to his digits. “You water the plants already?”

Prompto nods, languidly.

“Today was my turn.”

Prompto snaps, “And I took care of it.”

“…Thanks. I guess I owe you.”

Prompto hums around his cigarette. There’s regret intimated in his gaze. Its violet specks flickers between Noctis and the street under their apartment.

“Ignis came over. He made lemonade, if you want some.”

While his eyes are momentarily focused on him, Noctis gestures to the soda cupped in his palm and asks, “What? Did you not want any?”

“Nah. It was too sweet.”

(You think of a variety of saccharine flavors: Prompto writhing underneath you, Prompto sliding in your lap, Prompto’s entirety in union with yours—together, achieving orgasmic releases that have more magnitude than the cosmos.)

Noctis sighs, pours himself a glass, and simmers in his daydreams.

Morning in Altissia is soft but simultaneously intense; vivid sunlight flickers through Prompto’s lashes and paints his skin in an alabaster glow. He’s attractive like this: one hand skims through his bed hair, slender fingers fondle his frazzled bangs, smoke billows out of his nose and out of that upturned, filthy, pink mouth.

(Remember the things he told you that night—lewd and lovely and awful things. Remember what you said in return—how you weren’t any better.)

Noctis studies the curvaceous line of Prompto’s lips. They’re indifferent, almost thin. He’s sending silent frequencies and transmissions to Noctis, hoping that he can understand his clipped replies and coarse body language. As long as he disregards Noctis’s existence and keeps his distance, he’s safe; Prompto can maintain his façade.

So Noctis asks to bum a cigarette, just to burst his fucking bubble.

The blonde glares at him with more misgivings than a crime drama. “Since when do you smoke?”

Nonchalantly, Noctis shrugs, “Maybe, I want to try?” He approaches slowly, like one would approach a creature liable to bite; Prompto has that look too, indigo irises narrowed in the corners of his eyes. Once he’s in arm’s reach, Noctis flicks his fingers along Prompto’s bare shoulder, compelling a flinch and a small escape, out of the window and into the living room—a scowl enlightens his expression; Noctis tries not to mention his apparent disgust.

“Ignis will kill you.”

Noctis mirrors him, the corner of his lip tugging itself into a grimace. Crossing his arms in defiance, he mutters, “At the end of the day, I’m a grown man.” Convincing Prompto of something he doesn’t even believe is difficult, so he proceeds, “Ignis gives me trouble because my dad pays him to.”

“Whatever,” Prompto exhales, stamping the orange smolder of his own cigarette down in the makeshift ashtray. He hands Noctis a cigarette from a full carton, ignoring their brush of fingers. He nods to the coffee table, “Lighter’s over there.”

Without hesitance, he curtly leaves Noctis at the open window, letting him bask in sun-given warmth and self-made shame. Pryna keenly follows Prompto to the kitchen, where he pulls a pack of lunchmeat out of the fridge and lets her nibble the sheds from his fingers. Kneeling to pet her, Prompto murmurs, “You’re a sweetheart.” He looks at Noctis knowingly—who has wandered from the window to the kitchen, watching the manner of his affectionate strokes into Pryna’s fur with a gaze soaked in immature envy. Prompto’s tone is reserved, bordering on the peripheries of inaudible, “You think you could get some dog food for Pryna this week? We’re kind of running out.”

(You remember Luna: the sound of her fuzzy excitement on the phone, your upcoming get-together at another coffee shop, how she’s moving into an apartment with her brother—the brother that doesn’t like you, not one bit—and how she’d love to have Pryna again. Think of the dog as a housewarming present.)

Noctis breathes, “We need to talk about Pryna.”

(And think of how you’ve stolen everything that could’ve possibly loved Prompto.)

“Luna…wants her dog back.”

…

The fight that follows is _strident_ , unlike the majority of their previous disagreements. Usually, they shun verbal altercations; Prompto doesn’t like unnecessary aggression and Noctis doesn’t like hurting his feelings, saying bitter and impulsive things he doesn’t mean. They typically settle their scores on bouts of the “silent treatment.” Tonight is different.

The crumple of Prompto’s expression augments in stages; the complete collapse takes minutes of prolonged silence. He stands, fists balled in quiet anger. His lips tremble as pushes Noctis out of his way and against the refrigerator—and Noctis pulls him back to the counter, boxing him in between his arms, knocking over the pitcher of lemonade Ignis had stirred before he left. Slices of lemon plunk onto the marble; Noctis bounds Prompto’s wrist with his hands in the pool of sweetness. He melds into the fury of his friend’s body, as close as he can—and establishes a tone of needless dominance.

“Don’t worry about the damn dog food. I’m taking Pryna back tomorrow.”

The words wrench from Prompto’s agape mouth, “Asshole. You’re such a _fuck_ when you want to be.”

“Prom.”

“What’s your fucking malfunction, huh? Whenever I find a _speck_ of happiness, you take it from me--”

(He’s onto you. Stop him.)

Noctis interjects, “Pryna’s not your dog.”

“It’s not about her! It’s about you--”

“Shut up.”

“I hate you. I fucking hate you.” Prompto slips a fist from Noctis’s grasp. He shoves again, a hand heaving against Noctis’s sternum, but he holds himself steady by the sink. Prompto hisses, “You always do this to me and I’ve been nothing but goo--”

His expulsion ceases, broken by an abrupt blush coursing over his skin in dark waves. An epiphany strikes him roughly—what he was about to say, the ambiguity of it—and how it brokers a groan from Noctis anyway, “You are, Prompto. So good to me.” He discerns their nearness, Noctis’s conscious swathe of his smoldering body. There are benign arms circled around his waist, a chin digging into the side of his throat, and a shattered voice in his ear, “Prom, please? I don’t want to fight. I just…I want to fix this.”

Prompto squeezes his biceps, wrings his arms around his neck, and mutters, “You try to fix everything, don’t you?”

(You feel Prompto poking around in your heart valves, searching for a leak.)

“Tell me, _Noct_. What have you tried to fix?”

(You feel him kicking the air out your lungs, stomping on your trachea. Your insides are mangled, mushy things.)

“You’re the worst thing that has ever happened to me.”

Prompto eases himself out of Noctis’s embrace. Connecting the freckles on his flustered cheeks are two wet trails of tears. He seeps into his bedroom, Pryna tailing his rushed steps. The door clicks behind them. The apartment is quiet, strangely tranquil—all color is muted by the morning. It’s still early. Instead of vomiting sentimental expletives at Prompto’s door, or downing every one of Prompto’s yogurts in the fridge just to piss him off more—instead of thinking about the neighbors eavesdropping, or the way in which he’s fucked everything, Noctis decides to return to his bed, the refuge of pillows and blankets—the mattress that still carries the stench of midnight and temptation.

It does anything but soothe.

Noctis screams into a pillow. He punches another. He tosses one across the room. He fumes and seethes and loathes Prompto for a whole twenty-two minutes—then, inevitably, he falls in love him again, slowly—harder than before. Noctis lulls himself to sleep like that, thinking of Prompto, Prompto, Prompto: his blonde hair framing the expression of his smile, those fucking freckles assorted into his own constellations, how he bails from his skateboard if a trick is too messy. He’s immaculate; Noctis pines for his everything—and he can’t remember a moment in his life where he hasn’t.

(You’ve only ever fought over small things: hogged blankets, fair portions of cake, turns in Justice Monsters 5, turns on a shared skateboard, who’d foot the bill at the Crow’s Nest, who’d withstand the brunt of Ignis’s lecture, who’d cope with the predicament of an irritated Gladio—which usually ended up being Prompto’s duty, because he’d chew on his lower lip during declarations of forgiveness and become a certain shade of invincible—and who could muster the effort to really hurt him? You’ve always centered your frustration into something cold and aloof and deadly silent. You’ve always waited until the desire inside you bubbled over and compelled your reconciliation with Prompto. You’ve been longing and longing and longing--)

…

When Noctis wakes, moonlight is dripping through his curtains like spilled milk. With only one body bartering its warmth, the bed is cold. Noctis’s favorite pillow dons a dark blemish, but he doesn’t know whether it’s drool or tears. For once, his bedroom appalls him. He stumbles past a stack of textbooks from last semester and pile of dirty clothes, into the dim light of the living room. The icicle lights Prompto had strung across the apartment are gentle on his deprived eyes. Frequent sniffles alert him to another presence.

“Prom?”

And there he is—the object of Noctis’s affections—crying under a row of winter lights. Prompto is curled on the couch with the dog, perched his lap. Noctis knows that Pryna isn’t his, but the way that Prompto loves her would convince anyone otherwise. He caresses through Pryna’s fur devotedly, his rose-rimmed eyes avoiding Noctis’s at all costs. Diaphanously long and blonde lashes awn over his irises, those deep pools shaded in forlorn indigo, glassy from tears. His voice is a muddle, a warble of sorts: “I’m sorry for fighting with you, Noct, I just…”

He hiccups. Quiet sobs compel his body to visibly throb. When Prompto cries, it’s like the world is on verge of unexpected obliteration; Noctis feels guilt well low in his belly. He can’t defy the instinctive urge to placate him anymore: his arms encircle Prompto’s pulsing waist, and his lips tease the shell of the blonde’s ear. He’s strong enough to transition Prompto from the corner of the sofa to his side, in spite of his resistance; Pryna scampers away from them both and Prompto practically whines at her absence.

“I have to take her,” Noctis murmurs, nuzzling into his shoulder tenderly, disregarding the word of the month. “I need to.”

“I know,” Prompto exhales, as Noctis lets his benignly pursed lips trail down a freckled throat. It’s inevitable, really, this contact. They’ve tentatively circled around it for years, in their own elliptical orbit: Noctis’s open mouth slicking Prompto’s pulse, Prompto’s soft, subtle noises, the way they move with each other, deliberate but cautious. He must feel Noctis, the fingers inching near his thigh, hoping to cup and divide the dilemma of his legs; Prompto babbles.

“I get it, I do. Pryna was never mine to begin with—I shouldn’t be so…”

Another hiccup escapes him, a quieter hitch that leads into a string of sniffles and whimpers prompted by touch, specifically newly felt fingers threading through his hair, tugging; Noctis inquires in decadent lows, “You shouldn’t be so what?”

“Emotional.”

Noctis tells him that this is okay—the tears, the helplessness, the bleak desperation for a fucking dog. Noctis understands what the problem is—Prompto blathers no, no, no you don’t—but Noctis knows what he needs. His thumbs seek and press against slim hips—and the blonder boy jumps, his elbow prodding Noctis’s kidney. In response, he grunts and grips longer, with more desperation—and Prompto, louder than anything else that’s left him tonight, moans, “Nothing’s _mine_ , Noct.”

And _Noct_ scoffs into the warm skin of Prompto’s shoulder, ghosting an immaculate row of teeth over a smattering of freckles. “I wouldn’t say that.” Prompto shrugs away his touch, forgets the feel of lips pressing against his nape. He denies Noctis’s implications, whatever they may be, by tearing at that vehement hold of his hips.

But Prompto just doesn’t comprehend how much of the world is his yet—like these dark Altissian streets, illuminated by starlight and rattled upon by his skateboard, or the water pushing through Altissia’s canals, the same blue as his eyes. He doesn’t understand how there are people that yearn for him everywhere, in the nooks and crannies of the planet. He doesn’t discern how those people are the ones that Noctis has selfishly stolen him away from.

Prompto doesn’t even possess his own appeal. He doesn’t notice how these caramel flecks embed in his skin are his alone, patterned uniquely by the sun’s affections—or his laughter, how it’s bright and bold and perfectly pitched. He’s bankrupted the sun with his smile, embezzled love, and eluded capture by everyone—and yet, he has taken so much.

Everything is his, whether he wanted it all or not—like the endless reel of thoughts recoiling off the walls of Noctis’s skull, so bittersweet, tender, and _wrong_. Like those dark, love-colored blemishes staining Noctis’s sternum, the curious nature of which never evaded Noctis’s dreams; the culprit of that hue is here, cradled within his body, trembling, acting so fucking coy. Near his collarbone, Prompto had drawn blood shamelessly—had Noctis scrabbling and clawing for reality, even now, with his sodden eyes and cherry blush under this dim, ochre, dreamy light.

Noctis’s fingers find Prompto’s thrashing wrist—and in an attempt to soothe him, Noctis guides his palm past his abdomen, past the flirtations within his chest, and up to his mouth. He kisses the vivid veins and the scraped knuckles. He plants his mouth upon the tattooed barcode on the underside of his wrist, lets his tongue fondle the hidden pulse. For once, Noctis intercepts Prompto’s gaze, which had fumbled to convene with his. The blonde’s embarrassment is tangible, apparent from the carmine tint and warmth of his skin.

He evades Noctis again, his eyes downcast elsewhere, his fingers curling into an innocuous fist. Noctis would do anything to bring him back: skin-on-skin friction, lip and tongue entanglement, nothings permeated by sweetness. He wants to drag that hand in his grasp to somewhere obvious; he wants to tell Prompto, that he could be his at any moment—that perhaps, he’s already Prompto’s possession—that he’s been under Prompto’s ownership for years. Instead, Noctis sighs an apology over the blonde’s nape, mouthing at those stray freckles peppering the jut of his vertebrae. Forgetting about the dog and focusing on their problems, he tells him covertly:

“I missed you.”

(You had and you are right now—and look, Prompto is smothered in your arms! This feeling welling in your stomach is similar to impending doom: that _sinking_ feeling. This is the feeling of missing someone without physically losing their presence.)

Prompto takes the time to turn to Noctis, to confront him: the feel of his legs intertwining with his, the bumps of their ankles brushing, the connection of their eyes, finally steady and constant. Noctis repeats himself, slower, softer. He’s not sure if he had spoken aloud or reaffirmed his own thoughts. He was distracted by Prompto’s blue stare—so vast and so filled by him. Prompto doesn’t say anything in return. His reply is a nudge of his forehead against Noctis’s chin, so he can’t see his face.

“Can’t we just talk?”

His shyness melds into his original stubbornness. He says, “No.”

(You are sinking, sinking, falling suddenly--)

“What _can_ we do?”

“Nothing. Just take Pryna back to Luna, and—I dunno, I’ll find another apartment.”

(You are on your fractured spine, dying. Prompto is killing you. Try to put this into words.)

“Don’t be fucking stupid.”

(Do better. Try harder.)

“I want you to stay with me.”

Prompto chuckles softly, “You want to fuck me.”

Noctis responds with a rich hum—not necessarily confirming Prompto’s suspicions, even if his mind does somersaults at the idea of sex with Prompto. He plays with the blonde’s hair again, earning him a frown that expels a vexed gasp when he pulls. The cream-colored walls emphasize the similarity of his skin’s undertones, the mussed linen bedspread in Noctis’s room, the memory of the last time he had held Prompto so close. He had coaxed such sweetness from him—words Prompto had saved just for him, clustered together in broken phrases, panted in scandalous whispers and restrained moans.

Still beset by thought and snarled in Prompto’s locks, Noctis says, “I want to take you somewhere.”

Something bashful leaves Prompto. “…Tonight?”

(You think of this night and every night. He’s so deserving and beautiful—you want everyone to see.)

Noctis suggests a dinner at the gardens, and Prompto’s brows arch at the idea: “It’s way too late—and I’d never go with you.” So he saves the concept of listening to soft violin and cello vibrations, feeding Prompto spoonfuls of caviar, and plucking roses from the plant-ridden walls as an apology for later. Noctis inquires, hands coming to curve around freckled cheeks, “When was the last time we skated together?”

Prompto leans into that touch despite himself, eyes fluttering shut in remembrance—and he can’t recall.

(You think Prompto. P-R-O-M-P-T-O. His last name is “Argentum” like the precious metal.  He loves photography and art and skateboards and skateboarding tricks—things that are very alike. You think of the kind of honesty skating twists out of Prompto. You think of him spilling his intestines to the night, while concurrently and unknowingly divulging his secrets to you. You think that this is perfect, for you both. Forget that. Get going.)

…

**Author's Note:**

> If you're confused by the timeline--listen, I confused myself with the timeline. Also, if you were wondering what poem Noctis was reciting, it’s Shakespeare's 147th Sonnet. Recommended reading, if you have the time…


End file.
